Reposted from the Michigan Political Review
If you listen to the mainstream media, hardly a day goes by that you do not hear something in the news about how enrollments are better than expected for the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.). The media paints an especially rosy picture when talking about the affects the government’s health care mandate. But here is something the media isn’t telling you; all over the country, people are feeling the effects of the government’s supposedly “affordable” care.
Two weeks ago, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, 450 administrative and executive employees of Saint Joseph Hospital were let go. According to an insider (who will remain anonymous), the terminated employees were given 1 week of severance pay for each year that they had worked for the health system. Sadly, this story has not even made local news yet. It seems that the mainstream media is all too eager to selectively ignore the negative affects that the federal government’s healthcare takeover, and focus only on cherry-picked highlights. Sadly, for 450 former employees of St. Joseph Health System, the truth can no longer be ignored.
As the Affordable Care Act continues to roll out, what happened in Ypsilanti is only the beginning. From the Becker Hospital Review:
The following are hospital layoffs and workforce reductions that have occurred so far this year and affected more than 100 employees. They are listed below by number of positions affected.
1. Cleveland Clinic cut several hundredopen positions, and about 700 workers took early retirement offers as part of the system’s plan to cut $330 million.
2. Northern Berkshire Healthcare in North Adams, Mass., closed North Adams Regional Hospital, its home health facility and its three hospital-owned physician practices. About 530 full- and part-time employees were affected.
3. Five-hundred employees at Louisville-based KentuckyOne Health were laid off, and 200 additional vacant positions were eliminated.
4. Berkeley, Calf.-based Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, a Sutter Health affiliate, eliminated 358 jobs. The cuts affected the equivalent of 175 full-time positions.
5. Financially beleaguered Crozer-Keystone Health System in Springfield, Pa., announced it would eliminate 250 positions. The job cuts affected physicians and several managers.
6. Johnson City, Tenn.-based Mountain States Health Alliance announced plans to eliminate 116 filled positionsand cut 45 vacant positions in a cost-cutting move. The system said direct patient care areas would not be affected.
7. St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif., laid off 152 employees and is leaving 18 positions vacant as part of a cost-cutting initiative. The hospital has experienced low patient volumes and reimbursement cuts and is cutting 5 percent of its budget for the current fiscal year.
8. Las Vegas-based University Medical Center laid off 105 employees, including nurses, as it plans to close four care centers.
9. Worcester, Mass.-based UMass Memorial Health Care announced its third workforce reduction in less than a year, in which it will eliminate 103 full-time equivalent positions, including 81 nursing positions. While some employees will be laid off, the loss of 103 positions will also be achieved through reducing employee hours and leaving positions vacant.
10. Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente issued layoff notices to 101 employees of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, which operates one hospital and 20 clinics on three Hawaiian islands. The affected employees include 66 security guards and 16 patient transporters, among other positions.
With the government’s mandate that all citizens must purchase health insurance, one would think the healthcare industry would be booming more than it ever has before; yet sadly, even the industry that should be profiting the most is making significant staffing cuts.
It’s time for the government to get out of the healthcare industry and let the free market make healthcare affordable for all. The government has proved that it can barely design a website that can handle the mandatory enrollment traffic let alone manage our nation’s healthcare system.

Waiting on Healthcare.gov
Click here to see if your state legislature is actively working to repeal or nullify the Affordable Care Act at the state level. My home state of Michigan is not; it’s time for us to contact our state representatives and let them know that we will hold them accountable at the voting booth. It’s time to nullify the federal government’s job killing healthcare takeover.